Elin Sæther The conditional autonomy of the critical press in China

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Elin Sæther The conditional autonomy of the critical press in China

Dissertation submitted for the PhD degree in Human Geography Faculty of Social Sciences Department of Sociology and Human Geography University of Oslo April 2008

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Acknowledgements

At this moment when I am completing my PhD dissertation, there is a great number of people I want to thank. First and foremost my infor- mants in China: journalists, scholars and activists, for sharing their time and experiences with me. Big thanks also go to my student assistants Yang Yang and Wang Yanyan for helping me to better interpret and understand social codes and customs in Chinese society.

At home, I would first like to thank my main supervisor, Kristian Stokke for advice, comments, and for providing necessary guidance in the academic world: you have meant a lot to me during all these years you have been my supervisor as a master’s and a PhD student. My second supervisor, Marina Svensson, has shared her extensive knowledge of the Chinese media and provided invaluable comments.

I will also thank The Department of Sociology and Human Geography for funding the PhD, and the Meltzer scholarship for funding my fieldwork.

Friends, family and colleagues have contributed in many ways. Elin Selboe, Heidi Østbø Haugen, Espen Gran, Øivind Hetland, Eirik Welo, Marianne Millstein, Sidsel Werner and Marte Galtung have all read and commented on parts of the dissertation. Laurel Mittenthal has proofread the entire manuscript, and Heidi Østbø Haugen and Jørgen Carling have helped with the layout.

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I have great colleagues at the Department: I sincerely feel that all the time spent on drawn-out lunch-breaks was worth it. It is fun and reward- ing working here with all of you.

My final thanks go to my family: my mother and father who are un- conditional in their love and support, my wonderful sister, my fabulous parents in law and finally, thanks to my husband Eirik and my children, Nils and Karin. Eirik: this work has taken its while, but now we have two children and two dissertations. Nils and Karin: I love you.

Oslo, 21.04.2008 Elin Sæther

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Chapter one

Introduction

The main purpose of this dissertation is to explore how the discursive practices of critical journalism in China are conducted within the context of an authoritarian one-party state. Discourses shape understandings of the world. They are politically powerful as means of categorizing and organizing signs. Discursive changes reflect and generate social changes, which is why control over language use is important for maintaining relations of domination. In China, the development of more critical journalism challenges the party-state’s discursive control. The Chinese media has been, and still is, conceived by party-state authorities as central to upholding their power, and the media continues to be defined as the mouthpiece (houshe) of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This mouthpiece role turns journalists into propaganda workers.

To party-state authorities, the mouthpiece role of the media presupposes control and restrictions that are incompatible with freedom of expression. When Chinese journalists define themselves as investigative and critical, they exceed the limitations of the mouthpiece role and re- define the media’s role in society, thereby confronting the party-state’s control of the public sphere. This contention cannot be explained simply

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as an opposition between civil society and the state (Keane 2001). Critical journalism has evolved within a state-controlled media system where the boundaries between state and society are blurred. An ambition of autonomy is central to the professional identity of critical journalists, but in a context in which the media is subject to state control, they employ a three-fold strategy of adapting to constraints, utilizing new opportunities and pushing at the boundaries constraining their work.

Critical journalists work within a state-owned media system while seeking to establish new spaces of representation by including previously absent perspectives and voices in the public sphere. When the media presents stories about people who suffer from poverty, the abuse of power or corruption, these narratives reach audiences beyond their local context.

Such representations confront political authorities with the population’s discontent. Media narratives focusing on people’s grievances point to the authorities’ responsibility for these circumstances. Such exposure of ille- gitimate political practices may contribute to strengthening accountability within authoritarian political systems, which may explain why party- state authorities meet critical and investigative journalism with caution, containment and boundaries. Nevertheless, the authorities accept critical journalism as long as it targets limited problems on the local scale, because it provides them with important information. When the party-state acts and addresses these problems, it enhances its legitimacy and contributes to conveying an image of the party-state as responsive. If critical journalism remains within the limits imposed by the party-state, it can be compatible with a modernized version of the mouthpiece role.

The development towards more critical journalism within the Chinese media illustrates some general characteristics of political reform in the

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post-Mao period of economic reform which began in the late 1970s, such as the tension between political control and market forces. The transition from a planned economy to a market-driven one has transferred power to social actors other than the ruling Communist Party. Conflicts between political control and the power of the market have been at the core of Chinese politics during the last thirty years of economic reform, often manifested as disputes within the political elite over the pace and extent of reforms. The diversification of the media field and the development of more critical journalism can be described as unintended consequences of economic reform, and the party-state’s coping strategies are revealing for their attempt to balance key political interests and the development towards a market economy. This tension has resulted in periods of relative liberalization followed by tighter control.

Within liberal media theory, the media’s ability to assume a watchdog role is understood as a consequence of its economic independence.

This positions private ownership and freedom from state involvement as preconditions for the media’s ability to contribute to democracy (Curran 2005). Throughout the period of economic reform the Chinese media has achieved increasing financial independence from the party- state. As a result, the sheer number and variety of media products have increased enormously. In the same period, the internet has revolution- ized information access, and has contributed to the fierce competition within the Chinese media market. Combined with a decentralized control structure, this has made more problem-oriented, critical journalism possible within Chinese media. When in the 1980s the party-state reduced subsidies and allowed the media to retain its own profits, this raised observers’ expectations of a potential transition. Political liber-

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alization was believed to follow in the wake of economic liberalization.

As the actual development of Chinese media has proceeded, it has become obvious that economic liberalization has not erased the political conception of the mouthpiece role of the media. In China, as else- where, critical journalism does not reflect a particular economic development, but is constituted through contextual, political processes.

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ESEARCH QUESTIONS

The dissertation is structured around two research questions. The first addresses how critical journalism adds new dimensions to the political roles of the media, and the second addresses the relationship between party-state authorities and critical journalists. To explore the political implications of critical journalism in China, the first question asks:

What are the political roles of the Chinese media?

The understanding of the term political that is applied in this dissertation goes beyond practices that are limited to formal, political institutions.

Within discourse theory, politics are connected to the way people organ- ize and control meaning. They are means of producing identities and antagonisms. Through mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion they make some social acts and strategies more likely than others (Howarth, Norval and Stavrakakis 2000, Laclau and Mouffe 2001). In a discursive understanding, the political denotes conflicts of interests, and the strategies of power, domination and resistance that are inherent aspects of every social system. Politics, on the other hand, are strategies designed to reduce or deny conflict (Mouffe 2005). Hence, the political role of the Chinese media is not limited to what it is assigned by the party-state authorities,

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but is also a product of the media’s own ability to convey conflicts and diverging perspectives in society.

The development of more critical perspectives in the media has not been a uniform tendency, and critical journalism exists in the form of pockets within a larger structure. The Chinese print media has been at the forefront of the development of more problem-oriented, critical and investigative journalism, and this dissertation focuses in particular on the role played by a newspaper affiliated with Guangdong Province authorities, Southern Weekend (Nanfang Zhoumo). For a number of years it has been very influential, and its journalists and editors have been crucial in developing and conveying an idea about what it means to be a critical and investigative journalist (de Burgh 2003a). Geographical variations in levels of control have created different opportunities in various locales, but the influence of critical journalism is not limited to these places or only to the print media. The discursive and social strategies of print journalists influence the understanding of the media’s role in general, and in cases when critical journalists from the press take up work in television, they bring their previous experience with them.

Critical journalism challenges the restrictions placed upon media content and practices within the Chinese media field, and the power relations between the restrictive party-state and critical journalists form the background of the second research question:

How is the media’s conditional autonomy being restricted, and how do critical journalists attempt to increase their autonomy?

The conditional autonomy of the media is a concept that is designed to capture the combination of increased freedom and the continuation of con-

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trol and restrictions that characterize the Chinese media field. The introduction of market mechanisms into the media sector has led to competition and diversification, which have provided Chinese audiences with more access to information than ever before. When the media’s autonomy is conditional, it is because party-state authorities have retained their power to regulate and sanction the media. Journalists are vulnerable to interference not only from party-state authorities, but also from private actors. There is no media law to protect the work of journalists, and this absence enables party-state authorities to regulate the media according to their varying political interests.

In this dissertation, critical journalists is a label used to refer to journalists and editors who conduct investigative and problem-oriented journalism; this identity is constructed in opposition to the media’s mouthpiece role and its propaganda discourse. By focusing on social problems rather than the authorities’ achievements, and by crossing the limits of propaganda discourse, critical journalists differentiate themselves from the majority of media workers in China.

By asking what critical journalists do to increase their autonomy, I ad- dress how the social and discursive strategies of journalists are conducted within a particular context. Critical journalists’ social strategies involve choices about issues, locations and investigative methods. Their strategies are designed to avoid crossing boundaries while retaining their ability to communicate about social problems and critical issues in the media. Dis- cursive strategies are important in achieving this end because conscious and careful choices of narrative techniques, framing and vocabulary make it possible to discuss issues that would otherwise be judged to be too critical and not suitable for publication.

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Investigative journalism and the idea that journalists should serve the people have become an ideal for the professional identity of Chinese journalists (de Burgh 2003b). The everyday practices of most Chinese journalists, however, do not correspond to this ideal. The work of most news journalists explains the necessities of current political policies, emphasises the importance of respecting authorities and conveys information about the activities of the CCP leadership (de Burgh 2003b). This general compliance reflects the party-state’s willingness to, and capacity for, controlling Chinese media (Esarey 2006, He 2004). One perspective on the Chinese media field is that relative financial freedom has not led to any increase in substantial media freedom. This notion is supported by the many cases where the party-state has interfered, sanctioned and even imprisoned journalists and activists who challenge the party-state’s limits on freedom of expression (He 2004). Reports by non-governmental organizations such as Reporters without Borders¹ and Committee to Protect Journalists² state that interferences against journalists in China are grave and common. The continued repression of freedom of expression in China illustrates the existing relations of domination, but the persistence of transgressions and journalists’ willingness to challenge these relations of domination demonstrate resistance. This resistance indicates that there have been changes in the power relations within the Chinese media field.

Those who dispute and challenge the boundaries of the Chinese media belong to a minority of journalists, who utilize particular circumstances to promote a different understanding of the journalist’s role in society.

1 http://www.rsf.org.

2 http://www.cpj.org.

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The impact of their practices, however, has consequences for the perception of media’s role in general.

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RGANIZATION OF THE DISSERTATION

Chapter two, Media, power and spaces of representation, is divided in two parts. Part one addresses theoretical perspectives on the conditional autonomy of the media. Media scholars are among the main contributors to this debate, and a central question under discussion is whether or not state-independent ownership is a precondition for the media’s ability to serve as a democratizing force in society. This argument is criticized by critical media scholars who argue that in many cases state-owned media have served the public interest precisely because they are not subjected to the same economic interests as privately owned media. The ownership and organization of media institutions are not sufficient to determine what role the media plays in state-society relations. To answer this, it is necessary to take the media’s social and discursive practices into account.

In particular, the media has a central role to play in shaping public discourse, and this is a crucial aspect of the political agency of critical journalists in an authoritarian context.

Chapter two – part two is entitled Containing resistance: hegemony and domination. The perspectives under discussion here all relate to the con- cept of power. Power is a nodal point for social science, it is contested and is inscribed with different meaning depending on its theoretical context. In the scholarly debate in the 1950s, power denoted the ability of a social actor to decide the outcome of a conflict. Subsequent Foucauldian perspectives have suggested that power is about the structuring of meaning, and have described it as a capillary and productive force. To analyse

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the conditional autonomy of media, it is necessary to turn to more discursive understandings of power, while keeping in mind that political op- pression is conducted through relations of domination that are direct and physical as well as discursive. In such relations, the oppressed voice their concerns and their resistance in a hidden transcript. Confronting that transcript is a public transcript offering representations of existing relations of domination as natural, legitimate and in the public’s best interests. Inserting elements of the hidden transcript into the public transcript is a strategy of resistance which can create new spaces of representation.

In a context of domination, this is one way the media can contribute to processes of democratization, by making new perspectives, which openly challenge hegemonic representations of space and politics, become part of the public sphere.

The discussion of the relationship between discourse and the physical reality of materiality continues in chapter three, on Meaning, materiality and the research process. The chapter begins with an examination of the disagreement between critical realism and discourse theory concerning the power of language. The outcome of this evaluation is that while these approaches places emphasis on either side of the materiality/discourse opposition, they are more compatible than mutually exclusive. The com- patibility of discourse theory and critical realism stems from a shared emphasis on structure rather than agency, and a less developed understanding of social practice. To do fieldwork is to engage with meaning and materiality, structures and agency, and in the latter part of this chapter I present my reflections on my approach to the field of critical journalism in China. Fieldwork is a learning process in which the researcher’s ability meaningfully to interpret her findings increases in tandem with

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her knowledge of the social context. My daily life in China both as a language student and during fieldwork and the cooperation and discussions with student assistants were important means of acquiring contextual knowledge for this project. This forms the background for my interpreta- tions of the data material, which consists mainly of interviews with critical journalists and of newspaper articles that demonstrate critical Chinese media discourse.

Chapter four, State-society relations in China, presents the political and institutional context of Chinese media. A main characteristic of this context is that the boundaries between state and society are blurred. Under Mao, the party-state was constructed in order to incorporate every aspect of society. Party and government institutions were established from the local level to the central and there was no clearly defined private space.

This has made civil society a problematic concept in the Chinese context.

The design of the Chinese propaganda system reflects the absence of a clear division between state and society. It is based on the conception of the party as the vanguard of the people, and of propaganda as means of educating and enlightening the people. In addition to the media, propaganda involved literature, art, music, scientific research, public health, sports and museums, because all these fields were regarded as important in engineering a new socialist culture. The positioning of the media as part of the propaganda system means that the media’s primary place in the state-society continuum is as an integrated part of the party-state.

How the role of media has changed during the period of economic reform is the main topic under discussion in chapter five, Diversifying media practices: the changing political roles of Chinese journalists. The media’s posi- tion within the propaganda system means that it has an instrumental role

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that is captured in its metaphorical assignment as the mouthpiece of the party. Journalists have been defined as propaganda workers, but they have also been required to mediate information about social conditions and people’s responses to party policies. This information, however, has been communicated through an internal media channel. Economic reforms and marketization have added new aspects to media’s role, and have also opened for more critical journalism in some parts of the Chi- nese media. The role played by the newspaper Southern Weekend is of particular interest in this regard because it has defined what it means to be an investigative newspaper seeking to mediate information in a bot- tom-up manner. Critical journalism challenges the mouthpiece conception of media, but it also maintains the ambiguity between information and propaganda that has characterized the political role of Chinese media. This chapter argues that one of the important contributions of critical journalism lies in the normalization of critical discourse. This means that to an increasing extent social problems can be discussed in the open media, rather than being restricted to an internal channel.

Chapter six, The polyphony of Chinese critical press discourse, continues the discussion about the political role of media through a discourse analysis of newspaper articles from Southern Weekend. This analysis also sheds light on what critical journalists do to increase their autonomy.

Because freedom of expression is limited in China, critical discourse must be presented in ways that make it acceptable within the boundaries established by the party-state. These requirements are reflected in careful ways of approaching and framing social problems, and in the polyphonic expressions that include the dominating discourse in representations of social problems. A general feature is that criticism must be limited and

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local, and explicit systemic perspectives on social problems must be avoided. Individualized narratives about human misery and suffering form an alternative to overriding social criticism, as do limited but seri- ous problems on the local scale that only provide vague hints regarding the political responsibility for such misery.

Chapter seven, Conditional autonomy: restrictions and resistance, focuses on journalists’ strategies for dealing with the limits and boundaries of critical journalism. In this chapter the emphasis is on the social, rather than the discursive, strategies of critical journalists in China. Self- regulation is the principal response to the limits and potential sanctions of critical journalism. Critical journalists take into consideration what they think can be accepted and what must be avoided, basing their decisions on experience and their interpretation of political signals. Mecha- nisms of self-regulation are also built into media organizations, through hierarchical structures that make editors responsible for the work of their subordinate journalists. Both local and central authorities are responsible for imposing limitations on critical journalism. Local authorities control and sanction the media entities under their jurisdiction, and can restrict access to sources when the outside media seeks to report on local issues.

Nevertheless, critical journalism in China has developed because journalists have found ways to work within and around the limits and boundaries imposed by the party-state. They apply investigative methods, are skilful in utilizing their own networks and seek to approach issues and problems in the ways that are least likely to invoke negative sanctions.

The result has been the emergence of new spaces of representation within the Chinese media that allow voices other than those of the authorities to be heard in the public sphere.

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Chapter eight, Conclusion, returns to the research questions and presents a condensed outline of the main arguments of the dissertation. This chapter expresses how the dissertation contributes to an understanding of political reform and the media’s role in China, and discusses how the conditional autonomy of the critical press in China sheds light on more recent developments within the Chinese media field.

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Chapter two – part 1

Media, power and spaces of representation

During the twists and turns of the development of the social sciences during the last decades, language and the politics of meaning have become focal points for discussion. This dissertation attempts to shed light on how the social and discursive practices of critical journalism in China are conducted within an authoritarian political context. In the following analysis of the political role of Chinese critical press, the main finding is that the relationship between the state and the critical media is one of conditional autonomy: the media has taken on a freer and more critical role compared to its former propaganda function, but the Chinese party-state remains a dominating force in relation to the media. The development of the media is part of a process of political reform that is motivated by the necessity of adjusting politics to the realities of a market economy, inter- national integration and information technology. This context has provided opportunities for more critical and problem-oriented journalism, in spite of regulations and strict control mechanisms aimed at restraining public critical discourse. The situation appears paradoxical: there is increased freedom for the media, but continuing repression; a critical press, but no independent media. Critical journalists lack the capacities for po-

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litical agency assumed to be decisive for political participation in established democracies. This raises the question of what kind of power it is that characterizes and enables critical journalism within an authoritarian state? The aim of this chapter is to outline a perspective on power and the media that results in an understanding of how political processes evolve in contexts characterized by domination.

This chapter is divided in two parts, of which the first discusses the conditional autonomy of the media. Within the academic literature on the media, media freedom is usually evaluated in relation to ownership structures and independence vis-à-vis political authorities. Here it will be argued that the media’s influence on society cannot be reduced to a question of ownership, because its political role also depends upon discursive practices. To the extent that representations put forward by the media challenge the worldview favoured by political authorities, the media is a source of resistance. The relationship between an authoritarian state and a discursively bold media can be described as one of conditional autonomy. Understanding the media’s political role through its discursive practices and connections to the state necessitates a contextual approach which takes the particularities of the political system and discursive and social practices into account.

The second part of the chapter continues this contextual approach to social and political institutions, discussing the concepts of power, hegemony and domination. The question of what power is and whether or not it is connected to resources is central within political geography, and the way in which power is conceptualized is decisive for which processes are considered to be politically important. In this dissertation, the emphasis on discursive practices presupposes a notion of power that includes

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the construction of meaning. Discourse and the politics of meaning are also central to the discussion of hegemony. Gramsci’s theory on hegemony underscores how state and society are relationally constituted (Simon 1991). The Gramscian concept of hegemony as a means of upholding a relation of domination is incorporated in discourse theory’s concept of discursive hegemony (Laclau and Mouffe 2001). Hegemonic strategies involve discursive and material practices, and the latter part of the chapter discusses more material aspects of domination and resistance.

Relations of domination are spatial, and hegemonic representations of space contribute to domination. However, resistance is also conducted through spatial strategies, through which social actors communicate points of view which challenge the hegemonic perspective. This source of resistance is captured in Lefebvre’s (1991) concept of the spaces of represen- tation. The spatiality of power emphasises the necessity of studying me- dia practices as contextual, as they acquire meaning according to specific political practices and discursive environments.

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HE CONDITIONAL AUTONOMY OF THE MEDIA

The speed, extent and level of detail of the information currently avail- able to many people in most societies are thought to separate our time from the past. In his trilogy about the rise of the network society, Castells (1996) describes the present as the information age, characterized by more extensive communication and mediation than ever before. The mass media influences the social, political and economic spheres of society, since mediation is central to the functioning of the information age.

Mediation is about inscribing the social with meaning and has a governing capacity, in the sense that mediated representations shape conduct

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through presenting its recipients with a certain world order. Media texts construe hierarchies of social life, zones of relative safety and danger, and as such exercise power (Chouliaraki 2006). The media’s crucial role in shaping people’s outlook on their own societies, and the rest of the world, makes it a powerful tool for political authorities and other social forces. In the following pages the discussion centres on why the media has become an important angle from which to analyse state-society relations. The argument is made that in order to capture the importance of the media’s role in relation to the state, it is necessary to distinguish between power over the media and the power of the media. This distinction helps explain how controlled and restricted media practices can contribute to a more democratic space, if media discourses challenge and criti- cize relevant authorities’ representations of the world.

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HE MEDIA

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S ROLE IN THE STATE

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SOCIETY RELATION

In modern societies, the state needs to communicate with its citizens, and the power of mediation means that the mass media is of great importance to the state. The principal objective of the pre-modern state was to increase the wealth and power of the sovereign. The idea of the importance of governing the population first became widespread during the six- teenth century, when feudalism dissolved and territorial, administrative and colonial states appeared. During this period, questions about how to govern others and how people should govern themselves were intensely debated (Foucault 1991). In this discourse of governmentality, the population was construed as central to the running of the state. This new perception of the state’s role later developed into an ambition to improve the lot of members of society, as better health and skills would lead to im-

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proved longevity and morals, and would in the end result in an im- proved tax base and more welfare (Scott 1998).

The close relationship between state and society has become an issue at the core of state theory, and theoretical questions have centred on the nature of state-society relations and how these reflect power relations.

During the last two decades, approaches to state and society relations have placed the relational constitution of state and society at the forefront (Migdal, Kohli and Shue 1994). Instead of a concept of the state either as a monolithic entity imposing its power upon society, or as a mirror of society, the relationships between social and state actors become the object of analysis. When the media is analyzed in light of the relational constitution of state and society, the decisive question is then how the media work within the state-society nexus.

There are two aspects of media power: power over and the power of the media (Street 2001). Power over the media is achieved through state regulation, censorship and patterns of ownership. The power to decide what is supposed to be reported is decisive for the role of the mass media in society. The power of the media is a more subtle form of power, one which relates to the ability to mould and change discourses and practices.

The media has a privileged position in influencing people’s perception of events, people and issues which they have never observed in person. The media’s power consists in its ability to influence and change its surround- ings. The two aspects of media-related power are clearly interrelated.

Ownership interests, advertisers’ requirements as well as state regulation and control all influence how and what mass media communicate to their audience (Curran 2005). Nevertheless, the distinction between the two aspects of media power is useful because it contributes to an understand-

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ing of how the media may play a political role that goes further than the function the media is assigned by private owners or state regulators.

The media is never independent of the social system within which it operates. It channels information between different parts of society, it shapes and influences discourses and representations and is a mediator between state actors and society. The media serves as a conduit for information transferred between the constituent components of that system; this makes it socially, culturally, politically and economically embedded (Randall 1998). The need for contextual analyses of the media’s role is not reflected in most of the media-related literature. Here, the context of liberal democracies dominates, and this literature tends to emphasise the importance of private ownership in securing the media’s independence of the state and thereby ensuring the democratic role of the media (Curran and Park 2000, O’Neil 1998). This perspective has less to offer in explaining the media’s role in social contexts marked by authoritarian rule, state control and lack of press freedom. In such contexts, the media’s ability to contribute to the democratization process cannot solely be deduced from its status as ‘free’ or ‘restricted’: this will depend on the actual media’s practices as a producer of discourse and mediator of representations.

Rather than defining the media’s relation to the state on the basis of the degree of state involvement, it is possible to construct a more contextual approach building on insights from the debate on state-society relations. At the core of this debate has been the question about the state’s autonomy vis-à-vis society, which again is a version of a more general discussion of the relationship between economy and politics. Orthodox Marxism sees politics as part of the superstructure mirroring economic

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relationships in society, and the state is conceived as a means or tool in the hands of the ruling class. Later Marxist thinkers such as Gramsci (1971) and Poulantzas (1978) have inspired criticism against the economic reductionism inherent in classical Marxism, and their work has been central in developing the concept of the relative autonomy of the state. If the state has a relative autonomy, it means that it is capable of implementing decisions even though they may be contrary to the immediate interests of the dominating class. The relative autonomy of the state introduces the political as a more independent sphere, one that transcends the orthodox Marxist concept of the political as an epiphenomenon of the economy.

The theoretical recognition of the relative autonomy of the state as- sumes that it has a political capacity. Evans (1995) criticizes this tendency to equate autonomy and capacity. As part of a more empirical approach to state-society relations, he argues that a state can be nearly completely autonomous, but still weak. The state’s capacity to implement decisions depends on its relationship with society, and if these linkages are absent, or weak, the state is autonomous, but lacking political capacity. In the opposite situation, when there are strong linkages between state and society, the state has a strong political capacity. This situation can be described as the embedded autonomy of the state. The same analytical distinction between the state’s autonomy and its capacity is present in Gramsci’s work, but here it is expressed as relating to the strength of the civil society. When the state relates to a weak civil society, this situation forces the state to rely on its coercive means to implement its policies; in contrast, hegemony based in a strong civil society reduces the need for coercion (Simon 1991).

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More recent work on the relations between state and society advocates a non-monolithic view of the state (Migdal et al. 1994). Neither ‘state’ nor

‘society’ are clearly demarcated entities, and to analyse their relations it is necessary to identify the various parts, organizations and practices which constitute them. Some parts of the state may have high autonomy and high capacity, while other state organizations may lack similar resources.

Analyses of the media’s role in society usually point to its independence from the state as a decisive factor. However, if Evans’ (1995) argument is applied, and independence means the same as autonomy, the picture becomes more complex. In Evans-inspired thinking, media organizations that are highly autonomous, but low on capacity, will be able to do what they want, but have little influence on state policies. On the other hand, mass media that has an embedded autonomy with strong linkages to the state might have a high capacity resulting in a strong influence on the political development of the society. This opens the way for evaluations of media’s political role that do not rest solely on the basis of media’s independence, but takes the contextuality of state-society relations into account.

In authoritarian states, where state power cannot be influenced through democratic elections, media independence is often highly restricted. When a certain level of autonomy is allowed, the media can be one of very few channels of influence from society to the state. I suggest that this situation can be understood as conditional autonomy. This conception is grounded in an understanding of the social as open and of hegemonic orders as changeable, while also recognizing the relative strength of the state versus social actors. It is a conceptualization of the state- society relationship that allows for an analytical separation of autonomy

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and capacity, important for explaining situations where political influence on the state depends on close ties rather than on autonomy. Finally, conditional autonomy is a concept that opens the way for an analysis of democratizing political practices and their implications, in contexts where the state remains in position to impose sanctions upon any un- wanted political developments.

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HE MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY

A free and independent media is conceived as being a precondition for a vital democracy. The media provides information that is regarded as crucial for citizens’ ability to make informed choices in elections (O’Neil 1998). An important question then becomes what the media’s role is in authoritarian societies and one-party states, such as China. Is the media in non-democracies only a propaganda machine, or is it possible that state-controlled media can also contribute to democratizing political practices? The discussion which follows suggests that the simple opposition between independent and restricted media is insufficient as a basis for understanding the media’s role in different societies. This distinction rests on a belief in the unrestricted position of the mass media in liberal- democratic countries. The argument put forward in this text is that an understanding of the political role of the media depends on a contextual approach that encompasses both discursive and institutional perspectives on media practices.

Within traditional liberal theory, the importance of the media is connected to its role as a free-market watchdog. The media’s major task is to function as a check on the state by monitoring state institutions and exposing abuses of state power. The fulfilment of the watchdog role de-

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pends on private ownership and freedom from state involvement. Any state engagement within the media sector is perceived as a threat against the media’s freedom that will prevent it from exercising its role as a watchdog (Curran 2005). The liberal theory of the free-market watchdog represents a state-centred approach to the relationship between state and society. The state’s monopoly on legitimate violence sets it apart from other social actors, and the state is construed as the seat of power from which the public needs to be protected. Investigative journalism is supposed to safeguard public interests and uphold democracy by uncover- ing obscured truths, exposing immoral or illegal practices and defending of victims of injustice (Curran 2005, de Burgh 2000a). Equally important for democracy is the media’s role in providing an arena for information and debate. Through journalistic practice that reflects conflicts and gives voice to a plurality of interests, journalists mediate the interests of the people in a way that responsive governments take into account. As such, the mass media serves as a channel for continuous feedback from citizens to their elected representatives (Curran 2005).

A principal problem with the above conception of the relationship between the state and the mass media is that it places insufficient emphasis on sources of power other than state power (Curran 2005). A substantial portion of global media is owned by large corporations, such as media conglomerates, and even in liberal democracies it is naïve to conceive of the media as being fully independent. The power of corporate interests demonstrates that private ownership of the media is not a sufficient guarantee for the freedom of the media. If the public/private distinction is made synonymous with the restricted/free opposition, the countervail- ing interests involved in the media’s relationship to corporate as well as

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government power remain hidden. For instance, privately owned media have supported authoritarian state rule in Argentina and Chile (Curran 2005), and private media in Taiwan accepted and contributed to legiti- mizing authoritarian rule (Lee 2000). Media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who controls the Star TV network in China, removed the BBC’s World Service channel in response to Chinese authorities’ negative reactions to the channel’s reports from the crackdown on the democracy movement in 1989 (Chambers 2000). In the late 1990s, there was a strong belief that the globalization of media and the development of the internet would bring down totalitarian regimes and pave the way for democracy (Monbiot 2005). This optimism did not take into account that internet technology has developed on a commercial basis that has also made it susceptible to state interests that weigh in the opposite direction of free information. In other words, private ownership is not a guarantee for a critical attitude in relation to state power; in order truly to be a watchdog, the media needs to extend its control and criticism to corporate power as well as state power.

The image of completely free, unconstrained media power in liberal democracies is an idealized picture of a more complex situation. In liberal democratic countries, the relationship between government and the media is often characterized by mutual dependency. The media needs access to power holders, and politicians depend on media coverage. Watchdog journalism is facilitated by the political opposition, as they have an interest in exposing problems and misconduct that can be blamed on their political antagonists (de Burgh 2000a). The implication is that even investigative journalism does not take place the place of independent of power holders and state authorities.

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Private, free market media is also subject to economic constraints that influence how the media contributes to democracy. Deregulation and commercialization of media appears to have reduced rather than increased the amount of watchdog journalism (de Burgh 2000b) . Investiga- tive journalism is expensive and resource-intensive and requires editors and owners who are willing to place social responsibility above profit- ability. This has meant that public media has been an important provider of watchdog journalism (de Burgh 2000b), contrary to what should be expected according to the free-market thesis. Market constraints also influence the media’s role in providing an arena for information and debate, since there are high costs involved in establishing a new outlet of the modern news media (Curran 2005). The commercialized press tends to prioritize content that maximizes sales, even if this can be said to un- dermine the freedom of information. In general, human interest and entertainment stories tend to be most marketable, while public affairs account for only a small part of media coverage. Finally, the importance of income derived from advertising in commercial media gives advertisers a profound influence on the media’s development. Media that attract a wealthy audience also attract more advertisers. It can be argued that this contributes to an information gap, where the media for the general public is information-poor, and the media consumed by the wealthy contains more substantial, investigative journalism. Curran’s main argument is that the market undermines the kind of information that is complex and nuanced, and that it encourages simplified, decontextualized stories filled with stereotypes (Curran 2005).

The constraints on a free media role represent a critique of liberal theory’s positioning of a free-market media as a precondition for the media’s

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democratic role. On the other hand, Lee (2000) warns against underesti- mating the value of a media that is independent of the state. In the case of Taiwan, the media has been partly private, but the largest private actors have been prone to cooptation by and close cooperation with the state.

The entanglements of state and market interests led to a strengthening of state power. Small-scale private media, on the other hand, was subject to less state control. It offered an outlet for criticism and debate that was not allowed in state organs, and that the dominant private actors avoided.

When foreign cable TV became popular and increased the challenge to the state’s domination of the media, the private, state-loyal media also became more likely to deviate from official positions in order to survive in the competitive media market. The result has been a diversification of media and media content, and a weaker, but still dominating state (Lee 2000).

The various limitations on the media’s watchdog role weaken liberal theory’s conception of the independent media. However, the media continues to be of great importance in processes of democratization. The media’s role in contexts of domination is less clear. In spite of the assumption of the close relationship between media and democracy, there are few attempts to analyse the media’s role in political transitions (O’Neil 1998). In the debate that followed in the wake of the transitions in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the 1990s, the media was hardly mentioned. This absence is due to an elite perspective that has dominated approaches to political transitions. Elites play a crucial political role in democratic transitions, but the institutional environment must be taken into consideration as well. Existing political, cultural and economic patterns are likely to influence the course taken during transition;

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in other words, the path-dependency of political change indicates the importance of studying, among other institutions, the mass media (O’Neil 1998). How the media contributes to democratic transitions depends upon a range of factors, including ownership status. People’s access to media depends on a range of factors including the population’s literacy rate, the degree of poverty and their access to electricity. Severe state-control might cause extensive circulation of underground publica- tions, but state-run media may also be more inclined to ignore censorship patterns in periods of rapid change (O’Neil 1998).

The elite perspective on political transitions reflects a narrow conceptualization of democracy and democratization, one that emphasises the formal characteristics of democracy rather than its substantial aspects.

The distinction between formal and substantial democracy was intro- duced by de Tocqueville, and implies that there is no necessary corre- spondence between the formal institutions of a democracy and the redis- tribution of power that makes citizens able to influence the decision making processes (Luckham, Goetz and Kaldor 2003). Grugel (2002) elabo- rates on the characteristics of formal and substantive democracy and describes a formal democracy as a minimalist conceptualization centring on the regular holding of fair elections. The competition must be between at least two political parties, and there must be an inclusive suffrage. Sub- stantial democracy is a more inclusive concept and depends on whether or not rights have real meaning for people. Democratization is understood as the processes that contribute to this goal, by introducing and extending citizenship rights, as well as creating a democratic state. Such politics of inclusion contain processes that give citizens a political voice and a stake in government. The government’s accountability and respon-

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siveness to the needs and interests of its citizens is crucial, as is the construction of democratic institutions that enable political contestation and debate. A successful politics of inclusion will lead to a situation where democratization from below is combined with effective governance (Luckham et al. 2003).

In many societies, this goal will seem unattainable, but the concept of politics of inclusion is still valuable because it points out processes of de- mocratization that may occur, even within authoritarian states, without necessarily resulting in the constitution of a formal democracy (Luckham et al. 2003). Sklar’s (1987) analysis of developmental democracy introduces the phrase “democracy in parts”, meaning that even within authoritarian states, there might be pockets of democracy embedded in institutions such as the courts, the media or the unions. Authoritarianism is not necessarily monolithic, and to the extent that institutions are able to create expanded spaces for dissent and debate, they contribute to democratizing in its substantial sense, while not necessarily resulting in the es- tablishment of a formal democracy.

The public recognition of the existence of conflicts and problems within a society is of great importance for a democracy (Mouffe 2005).

This means that the democratizing potential of media practices depends in particular on the media’s ability to discuss social and political problems, mediate grievances, as well as critique power holders. Mouffe (2005) understands the political as a sphere where there will always be power relations, conflict and irreconcilable interests. At the core of political processes is the formation of a ‘we’ in opposition to a ‘they’, and the antagonism between different collective identities cannot be resolved. In other words, democracy is not about removing such conflicts, but relates

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to the possibility of articulating conflicts and critique in the open. In Mouffe’s thinking, politics, on the other hand, refer to the manifold practices of politics, which often take as their goal the reduction of the impact of conflicts, rather than recognizing them as legitimate expressions (Mouffe 2005). This is what happens in liberal democracies characterized by political deregulation and emphasis on the capacities of the market.

Liberalist ideology tends to represent society as complex, but harmo- nious. Liberal discourse propounds the argument that through a rational consensus, every perspective, every interest, every identity can coexist in a non-conflictual way. The assumption that conflicts of interest can be resolved through market mechanisms reduces the scope of the political field. Liberal democracies also tend to replace the historical oppositions between left and right by centre-left and centre-right, and the result is more blurred positions and less political antagonism. The consequence is that conflicts, social problems and criticism are represented as technical issues that should be left to experts to resolve, rather than problems that must be approached as political issues. This negation of the conflictual nature of the political can also be found in the liberal paradigm that advocates a communicative rather than instrumental rationality. When politics is conceived as a moral field in which it is possible to reach a rational consensus through debate and free discussion, it contributes to a depoli- ticization of social problems (Mouffe 2005). In a state like China, where there is one party that presents itself as the representative of a united people, antagonisms tend to be glossed over and suppressed. Such negation of antagonism and conflict prevents and limits democracy.

The aim of this discussion is to arrive at an understanding of how, in a situation characterized by state control and restrictions, the media can

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continue to find outlets that contribute to democratization. Mouffe’s argument that the political must be understood as antagonism is a starting point. Politics is about the constitution of we/they oppositions, and to her, “politics is not the overcoming of the we/they opposition but the different ways in which it is established” (Mouffe 2005:14). Democratic politics is about constructing political identities, we/they relations that do not turn into friend/enemy relations. Instead, antagonism should be constructed in a way that makes conflict compatible with society’s interests and a legitimate expression for opposition. This requires the recognition that there exists a common bond between the parties in a conflict, which changes the we/they relation from one between enemies to one between adversaries. Mouffe names this kind of relation ‘agonism’ and argues that democracy’s task is to turn antagonism into agonism. In contexts where the media has an ability to influence how social issues should be represented, for instance whether or not issues should be represented as technical problems to be solved or as legitimate conflicts between adversaries, it endows the media with a central role as a potential democratizing force. To the extent that the media contributes to politicizing social issues, it becomes a factor in the democratization process, giving voice to interests that might otherwise remain unrecognized. Mouffe states that the specificity of modern democracy “lies in the recognition and legitima- tion of conflict and the refusal to suppress it by imposing an authoritarian body” (Mouffe 2005:30). This presupposes a break with the conception of society as an organic body in which conflict is interpreted as a threat to its very existence. A democratic society must provide institutions that allow for the expression of conflicts.

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T

HE POWER OF MEDIATION

It is in matters concerning society’s openness to discussion and debate that the media can play an important role in processes of democratization. Democratic spaces in society can be expanded through representations that challenge the authorities’ versions of what society is like, such as news items showing grievances among the population, or criticism that calls for accountability and transparency. The media’s ability and willingness to mediate such representations does not necessarily mirror its institutional role. In order to understand how politically restrained media can contribute to democracy, it is necessary to analyse the media’s discursive practices, and in particular critical media discourse that centres on social problems such as grievances and suffering.

Thompson (1995) attempts to explain the connection between narratives of suffering and democracy. Thompson argues that we need a new understanding of publicness. Traditionally, public life is seen as depending on co-presence and face-to-face interaction. This is an unsatisfactory understanding of public life today, and the mass media is something else than an extension of traditional public life by other means. The mass media’s ability to gain recognition for people’s concerns is central to democracy, because it compensates for state authorities’ tendency to lose touch with the concerns of ordinary individuals. In short, the media can com- pensate for the lack of responsiveness within the state, but Thompson holds that the media also contributes to a democratization of responsibility. When people are being exposed to narratives about the suffering of other people, in other places, it contributes to democracy. Through such representations people are being exhorted to be responsible citizens with a concern for non-local others. The media politicizes the everyday by

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making it visible, and extending the space of the visible is likely to bring forward more collective action in response to mediated information (Thompson 1995).

The main problem in this analysis is the lack of explanation as to how media narratives contribute to a democratization of responsibility. This question, on the other hand, is at the core of Chouliaraki’s discussion of the power of mediation (Chouliaraki 2006). In her analysis of the specta- torship of suffering, she analyses how news about people in dire conditions is translated into meaning, and how the expected reaction of the spectator is written into media texts. Within media and cultural studies, a topic such as distant suffering has been discussed, but often in a way that focuses on news as image rather than text. The difference is that while the discussion of news as image concentrates on media’s ability to convey real suffering and the possible disruptions in the process of mediation, a perspective of news as texts opens the way for a semiotic approach. This view does not exclude visual images, but asks how they contribute to the construction of meaning. Mediation is a technology of discourse that influences conduct, ethics and identities, and this makes it a technology of governmentality. The following discussion addresses the issue of how mediation as a technology of discourse can contribute to processes of democratization (Chouliaraki 2006).

The different constraints on media freedom make it difficult to state exactly how the media constitutes various forms of political discourse and democratic practices on a general basis. Different media genres and their mediation of political discourse, media production, reception and audiences’ practices in perceiving and interpreting are all decisive mo- ments influencing the power of mediation. Rather than approaching the

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power of mediation from a general point of view, Chouliaraki argues for an approach that focuses on singular texts and their discursive characteristics (Chouliaraki 2006). Discourse analysis highlights a perspective on language and representation as constitutive, and not only constituted.

Through articulations, signs are combined in a way that enables some particular representations while excluding others (Laclau and Mouffe 2001). Hence, the approach to media texts that Chouliaraki advocates becomes meaningful if singular texts are conceived of as texts generating discourse, as well as generated by discourse.

From the perspective of discourse analysis, mediated political discourse is an attempt to establish particular versions of the issues debated, by combining signs in a way that appears natural and self-evident (La- clau and Mouffe 2001). The media wields great power in deciding what is going to be presented as news, feature stories or entertainment; and the framing of news and feature stories influences the audience’s perceptions.

To deconstruct the frame is a device for analysing how media stories are told as narratives. Journalists animate events and turn them into stories with plots and actors, and the storyline assigns responsibility and causality in relation to the actors. In the media’s representation of politics, political actors can be represented as if they were driven by external events, or as an autonomous force deciding the course of action. Such choices convey a particular representation of causality, which make some follow- up angles more likely than others. Frames are structuring tools and they cause particular representations to appear repeatedly in similar versions.

For instance, media narratives about Africa tend to place poverty, violence, death, war and famine at the forefront of the narratives, and ignore

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or all other possible representations of life and politics on this continent (Street 2001).

Framing is the process of selecting and highlighting some features of reality, while simultaneously underplaying other aspects. Metaphors, verbal depictions and visual images, as well as catchphrases and representations of causes and effects, are important means through which frames are established. The result is a consistent story which establishes a narrative about problems, their causes, the involved responsibilities, implications and solutions. News stories are not different from other media genres, in the sense that they are presented in certain ways that exclude other possible ways of narrating the same event, and they are read according to a set of social codes (Street 2001).

News discourse produces meaning, not only through communicating events that have taken place, but also through its representations of identities, places and possibilities for change. There is always a construction of the imagined audience within the communication practices of the media. Politically, this is interesting since journalists and editors often claim it is their task to reflect the interests, views and concerns of the people.

Since this is an unattainable goal, the text mediates an imagined audience (Street 2001). This is perhaps most obvious in media products directed at very specific, targeted audiences, sometimes the imagined reader of a magazine is even given a name and an age to exemplify the intended core audience. However, every media text bears an imprint of an imagined receiver, and the construction of the audience takes place through the text’s means of defining that this is a matter of importance to the reader.

The imagined audience appears through the construction of a ‘we’, a collective identity constructed in relation to ‘them’. In the US media’s repre-

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sentations of crime, ‘they’ have frequently been young, black men who are threatening ‘us’ (Street 2001). In the Danish election campaign in 2001, the mass media played a central role in defining the relation between the Danish ‘we’ in opposition to refugees and immigrants as ‘them’ (Bruun 2005). The media’s two-way relationship with the people, mediating information from the state and other authorities, but also reflecting the interests and views of ordinary people, means that ‘the people’ is discursively constituted in media texts (Street 2001). The media’s constitution of the people influences the representations of the relationship between the people and the state and the people and politics. The ‘we’ of the text is different from the ‘they’ who make the political decisions (Street 2001).

This means that the mass media contributes to constituting the political discourse by deciding what the political discourse is and which questions are included in the category of the political.

The choice of space-time is important in the construction of identities in the text. When distance and difference are emphasised, the implied

‘we’ in the text is represented as remote from the human objects described. This is a typical characteristic of texts representing distant suffering in Western media, such as flood victims in Bangladesh or internal refugees in Sudan. On the other hand, when suffering is presented in a way that accentuates its relevance for ‘all of us’, it changes the relationship between the ‘us’ and ‘them’ of the text and brings them closer to- gether (Chouliaraki 2006). How a text depicts distance influences how agency is conceptualized, both the agency of the audience as well as the audience of the people involved in the news. Whether or not the news story seems close to the reader influences the creation of feelings such as responsibility.

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When analysing modes of reacting to news that convey suffering, Chouliaraki distinguishes between a contemplative mode of spectator- ship and forms of viewing that bring about identification with sufferers.

Different discursive representations inspire different ways of viewing, but a text can never do more than inspire a certain way of behaving in its audience. A contemplative mode of viewing is a more likely reaction to discourse that emphasise a neutral way of reporting suffering, such as aggregated facts from far-away contexts. Identification, on the other hand, depends upon portraits appearing as ‘real people’. This mode of viewing can be likened to a theatre, where the viewer engages in a story about benefactors and persecutors. These are symbolic figures that organ- ize the affective potential of their spectators and raise impulses to protect and comfort the suffering and to denounce and punish evildoers (Chou- liaraki 2006). Whether or not a text facilitates such reactions also depends upon the degree to which the victims of suffering are inscribed with agency. People who are represented as having a voice and an ability to act are more likely to evoke pity.

The media’s potential for contributing to processes of democratization depends on its ability to evoke agency. If, as Boltanski (1999) writes, agency can be a reader’s silent, internal whisper, how can this soundless utterance be of political importance? An affirmative answer to this question presupposes a view of discourse as productive. If a media text has convinced its reader that a person in question has been treated unfairly, or that a group of people has been subject to discrimination, the reader’s reaction contributes to a future disposition against similar treatment of people in other situations. It is part of shaping the reader’s outlook on society. The ethics of media texts about suffering are connected to how

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particular texts present suffering as a moral cause, and whether or not this is something to which the receiver is supposed. In many media texts, the expected reaction to the news is incorporated in the text itself, as various ‘helpers’ and their reactions are described in the narrative. If a text explains how people have been collecting money, given donations or written petitions on behalf of the victims, these reactions position the objects of suffering as deserving victims and suggest possible ways for receivers to act.

To sum up this discussion, I have argued that a contextual approach is needed in order to capture the democratizing potential of media. The first part of the chapter dealt with questions of media and democracy, and how the media can contribute to processes of democratization within authoritarian contexts. This is less obvious, because authoritarian states prevent the media from serving as an independent watchdog, or as an arena for free, public debate. The chapter argues that the media’s condi- tional autonomy in an authoritarian context includes a discursive perspec- tive that enables the media to influence state policies. Even a strongly restricted media may have a conditional autonomy, a space of representation that enables it to contribute to democratizing processes in a context characterized by authoritarian rule, state control and lack of press freedom. The next part of this chapter aims to explore what kind of power the conditional autonomy of media involves, and the relations of domination and resistance the media engages with.

Elin Sæther The conditional autonomy of the critical press in China